Engineering - A Modern Creative Discipline (incomplete) - By: C. Sidney Burrus
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Engineering – A Modern Creative
Discipline (incomplete)
By:
C. Sidney BurrusEngineering – A Modern Creative
Discipline (incomplete)
By:
C. Sidney Burrus
Online:
< http://cnx.org/content/col10362/1.3/ >
CONNEXIONS
Rice University, Houston, TexasThis selection and arrangement of content as a collection is copyrighted by C. Sidney Burrus. It is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/). Collection structure revised: January 1, 2009 PDF generated: February 4, 2011 For copyright and attribution information for the modules contained in this collection, see p. 8.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction to Engineering
1.1 What is Engineering?? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 References for Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Attributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8iv
Chapter 1
Introduction to Engineering
1
1.1 What is Engineering??
1.1.1 Introduction
What is engineering? What is an engineer?? Although it is a very old activity or trade, engineering is a
relatively young academic discipline or profession. Only in recent years has it reached a stage of maturity
where some of its de ning details and dierentiating characteristics can be articulated. Engineering is the
endeavor that creates, maintains, develops, and applies technology for societies' needs and desires. Its origins
go back to the very beginning of human civilization where tools were rst created and developed. Indeed,
a good case can be made for the de ning of humans as those animals that create, develop, and understand
the signi cance of technology.
Over time, the part of technology that acts as an extension of human capabilities became the purview of
engineering. One can view bicycles, cars, and trains as extensions of walking and running. Airplanes are an
extension and application of a bird's ability to y transferred to humans. The telegraph, telephone, radio,
television, and the internet are extensions of talking, hearing, and seeing. The microscope, telescope, and
medical x-ray are also extensions of human sight and vision. Writing, books, libraries and computer data-
bases are extensions of human memory and the computer itself is an extension of the human's brain in doing
arithmetic and carrying out logical arguments and procedures. Indeed, looking around your environment in
almost any setting, will illustrate just how pervasive technology is. In almost any home or o ce, there is
very little that is truly "natural"; i.e., little that is not created or manipulated by technology. The food that
you eat, the utensils that you eat with, the table that you eat o of, the house that you are in, the clothes
that you wear, the book that you read, the television that you watch, the telephone that you communicate
with, the car that you travel in these are all technologies created by human cleverness to satisfy human
needs. This process of creation is engineering and those who do the creating are practicing engineering,
whether they call themselves engineers or not.
Not only is much of the inanimate world created by engineering, part of the living world is also. Almost
all crops and agriculturally produced food stu are "engineered" through selective breeding. The same is
true of domestic animals such as pets and animals raised for food or sport. Certainly the dogs, cats, and
cattle have not "naturally" evolved to their current state. They have been created or designed to satisfy
human desires or needs. The slow and less exact methods of controlled breeding are being replaced by genetic
engineering, tissue engineering, and applications of nanotechnology. We humans have the cleverness to do
that. It is the development of the tools, theories, and methods and the understanding of the appropriate
sciences and mathematics for that process that is engineering. It is a central part of the history of humanity.
Not only has engineering made our lives easier and longer, it has sometimes made them more terrible and
shorter through improving our ability to kill and harm when we wage war. Indeed, military and defense needs
1 This content is available online at .
12 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION TO ENGINEERING
have been a historic driver of technological advancement. One of the earliest categorizations of engineering
was into military and civilian (or civil) engineering.
Because technology enables and causes change, it and its creators, the engineers, are viewed with mixed
feelings. This is especially true in modern (perhaps post-modern) times when the negative side eects
(unintended consequences) of technology must be addressed.
This note is an attempt to address the question of what engineering is and then that of what an engineer
is. It is intended for the general public to better understand just what this thing that has such a profound
eect on our individual and collective lives is. The note is intended for the student who is considering
becoming an engineer and, therefore, it is for parents and high school and college counselors as well. It is for
the university engineering student and professor and for the university administrator. It is for the state and
federal governments who fund engineering education and research and the investor who invests in technology.
It is for the husband, wife, parent, or child who wants to better understand their spouse, child, or parent. It
is for everyone who accepts the argument that a human is a technological animal and that technology has a
pervasive eect on our lives.
An important part of this note is the list of references. This collection of short essays is intended to open
many topics and ideas, not develop them. A rather long list of references is given to allow the reader to
pursue any of the many ideas further.
1.1.2 Science and Engineering
One of the rst distinctions that must be made is between science and engineering. It is not a simple
distinction because the two are so interdependent and intertwined, but whatever dierence there is needs to
be considered.
Science is the study of natural phenomena. It is the collection of theories, models, laws, and facts about
the physical world and the methods used to create this collection. Physics, chemistry, biology, geology, etc.
try to understand, describe, and explain the physical world that would exist even if there were no humans. It
is creative in building theories, models, and explanations, but not in creating the phenomena that it studies.
Science has its own philosophy with an epistemology, esthetics, and logic. It has its own technology in order
to carry out its investigations, build its tools, and pursue its goals. Science has its organizations, culture,
and methods of inquiry. It has its "scienti c method" which has served as a model (for better or for worse)
in many other disciplines.
Science is old. It was part of the original makeup of a university or college in the form of natural
philosophy. It came out of antiquity, developed in the middle ages, blossomed in the renaissance, was the
tool of the enlightenment, and came into its present maturity in modernity. Indeed, the history of science
is, in some ways, a history of intellectual development. This is certainly only true in conjunction with
many other strains of philosophical, economical, theological, and technological development, but science is
a central player in that story. Science is often paired with the arts (and Humanities and Social Sciences) in
the College of Arts and Science of a traditional university.
Engineering is the creation, maintenance, and development of things that have not existed in the natural
world and that satisfy some human desire or need. A television set does not grow on a tree. It is the creation
of human ingenuity that rst ful lled a fantasy of a human need and then went on to change the very society
that created it. I use the term "things" because one should include computer programs, organizational
paradigms, and mathematical algorithms in addition to cars, radios, plastics, and bridges.
Science is the study of what is and engineering is the creation of can be. Only recently has engineering
developed the set of characteristics that make it a legitimate academic discipline. Earlier, engineering often
was viewed only as the application of natural science. Now, engineering has developed its own engineering
science for the study of human made things to supplement natural science which was developed to study
natural phenomena. Parts of computer science are wonderful examples of that. Engineering has its own
philosophy and methodology and its own economics. It even has its own National Academy.
We dierentiate science and engineering, not because their dierence is great, but because, in many
ways, it is small. Science could not progress without technology, and engineering certainly could not ourish
without science and mathematics.3 A more illuminating comparison might be between the humanities and engineering. One might nd more similarity in style (not content) between English literature and engineering than between science and engineering. Both literature and engineering are the study of human created artifacts. Both teach creation in the form of creative writing and engineering design. Both teach analysis in the form of literary criticism and engineering analysis. Both are intimately connected with the needs and desires of individuals and society. A similar analogy could be made between art and engineering looking at studio art, art criticism, and art history. Most scientists (but not all) feel there is some unique objective truth behind the physical phenomena they are studying. Their goal is to nd it and describe and explain it, and this truth is unique although the approaches and approximations to it are certainly not. In literature and engineering, the designed entity is not unique to the situation, but it is a creation of the particular writer or designer and perhaps unique to the creator. The distinctions of this section are not as clean or clear as have been presented here. The boundary between science and engineering can be and often is murky. Many items of study in science are in uenced if not literally created by people. This is obviously true in biology and the life sciences but also true in physics where certain elements in the periodic table do not exist in nature. Perhaps, therefore, the areas of pure science are very limited. On the other hand, since people are members of our natural system, an argument can be made that their products are as natural as anything else and, therefore, the areas of pure scienti c study are very broad. Clearly engineering is constrained in what it can create by the laws of science as everything is. Nevertheless, there is a dierence in spirit in the two disciplines worth trying to delineate. 1.1.3 Engineering Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow In early times, the practice of engineering was that of a trade or craft with training occurring through some form of apprenticeship. As it developed into a profession and more recently as an academic discipline, it took on the shape of other academic disciplines, with preparation being an education rather than a training. An important turning point in the Unites States was the land grant college act (Morrill act) of 1862 which established an institution for the teaching of agriculture and the mechanical arts (engineering) in each state. This o cially legitimated engineering in higher education although it still had the form of training. Interestingly, this act came into being during the American Civil War and was signed by Abraham Lincoln. World-War II was the second turning point when it was discovered that many of the technical innovations necessary for that eort came from scientists, mathematicians, and theoretically educated engineers rather than traditionally trained engineers. Most engineers prior to that time had been trained to develop and apply ideas already in existence, not to create new solutions to new problems. After WWII, the university curricula in engineering became much more scienti c and mathematical. It took on more elements of an education rather than a training. It slowly became a real academic discipline in its own right rather than only an application of other disciplines. However, it retains the integrating role of applying the physical and life sciences using some of the tools of the social sciences, law, and policy and the values derived from the humanities, letters, arts, and business. We are now going through a third transition in engineering in response to many factors in society and in technology itself. In the larger picture, society went through the agricultural phase, the industrial phase, and now the information phase. These three phases of civilization created and were created by the most powerful and applicable technologies of the time. Engineering is and will be the creative element in the information age as it has been in preceding ages. 1.1.4 References A list of references can be found the Reference module.
4 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION TO ENGINEERING
2
1.2 References for Introduction
1. Barry M. Katz, Technology and Culture: A Historical Romance, Stanford Press Alumni Series, 1990.
2. Lawrence P. Grayson, The Making of an Engineer, An Illustrated History of Engineering Education in
the United States and Canada, Wiley, 1993
3. George Bugliarello, Engineering, Editorial in American Scientist, published by Sigma Xi, vol. 81, no.
3, May-June, 1993, page 206.
4. Norman Hackerman and Kenneth Ashworth, Conversations on the Uses of Science and Technology,
University of North Texas Press, 1996.
5. Robert Pool, Beyond Engineering: How Society Shapes Technology, Oxford University Press, 1997.
6. John Horgan, The End of Science, Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scienti c
Age, Addison-Wesley, 1996; and Broadway Books, 1997.
7. Derry and Trevor I. Williams, A Short History of Technology: From the Earliest Times to A.D. 1900,
Oxford University Press, 1961; and Dover, 1993.
8. Ruth Schwartz Cowan, A Social History of American Technology, Oxford, 1997.
9. Richard Rhodes, Visions of Technology, From Marconi, Wright and Ford to the Thinkers of Today and
Tomorrow, Simon & Schuster, 1999.
10. N. Rosenberg, R. Landau, and D. C. Mowery, Technology and the Wealth of Nations, Stanford, 1992.
11. R. S. Lowen, Creating the Cold War University: The Transformation of Stanford, Univ. of Calif.
Press, 1997.
12. Vannevar Bush, Science, The Endless Frontier: A Report to the President on a Program for Postwar
Scienti c Research, US Government Printing O ce, 1945.
13. Michael Dertouzos, What Will Be, How the New World of Information will Change our Lives, Harper
Collins, 1997.
14. Kirby, S. Withington, A. B. Darling, and F. G. Kilgour, Engineering in History, McGraw-Hill, 1956;
and Dover, 1990.
15. Samuel C. Florman, The Existential Pleasures of Engineering, St. Martin's Press, 1976.
16. Donald Christiansen, editor, Engineering Excellence Cultural and Organizational Factors, IEEE
Press, 1987.
17. James L. Adams, Flying Buttresses, Entropy and O-Rings: The World of an Engineer, Harvard Press,
1991.
18. Carl Mitcham, Thinking through Technology: The Path Between Engineering and Philosophy, Univer-
sity of Chicago, 1994.
19. Don Ihde, Philosophy of Technology, An Introduction, Paragon House, 1993.
20. Bruno Latour, Aramis or The Love of Technology, The story of a 24 year design of a guided trans-
portation system in France that was dropped in 1987, Harvard, 1997.
21. Fred Hapgood, Up the In nite Corridor: MIT and the Technical Imagination, Addison-Wesley, 1993.
22. Subrata Dasgupta, Technology and Creativity, Oxford University Press, 1996.
23. Peter F. Drucker, Post-Capitalist Society, Harper Business, 1993.
24. Alvin Toe er, The Third Wave, Bantam Books, 1980.
25. Alvin and Heidi Toe er, Powershift, Bantam, 1990.
26. Alvin and Heidi Toe er, Creating a New Civilization, Turner, 1995.
27. Don Ihde, Technology and the Lifeworld, From Garden to Earth, Indiana Press, 1990;
28. Kenneth J. Gergen, The Saturated Self, Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life, Basic Books,
1991.
29. Neil Postman, Technopoly, The Surrender of Culture to Technology, Vantage, 1993.
30. Hardison, Jr., Disappearing Through the Skylight, Culture and Technology in the Twentieth Century,
Penguin Book, 1989.
31. Frederick Seitz, The Science Matrix, Springer-Verlag, 1992.
32. John Hatton and Paul B. Ploue, Science and Its Ways of Knowing, Science is a way of thinking much
2 This content is available online at .5
more than it is a body of knowledge, Prentice Hall, 1997.
33. Henry Petroski, Beyond Engineering, Essays and Other Attempts to Figure without Equations, St.
Martin's Press, 1986.
34. Kingery, R. D. Berg, and E. H. Schillinger, Men and Ideas in Engineering, Twelve Histories from
Illinois, University of Illinois Press, 1967.
35. Robert C. Goodpasture, Engineers and Ivory Towers: Hardy Cross, McGraw-Hill, 1952
36. Raymond B. Landis, Studying Engineering, A Road map to a Rewarding Career, Discovery Press,
1995.
37. James L. Adams, The Care & Feeding of Ideas, A Guide to Encouraging Creativity, Addison-Wesley,
1986.
38. J. Campbell Martin, The Successful Engineer: Personal and Professional Skills - a Sourcebook,
McGraw-Hill, 1993.
39. Michal McMahon, The Making of a Profession: A Century of Electrical Engineering in America, IEEE
Press, 1984.
40. Joel, Jr. And G. E. Schindler, Jr., A History of Engineering & Science in the Bell System, Switching
Technology (1925-1975), Bell Laboratories, 1982.
41. James M. Nyce and Paul Kahn, editors, From Memex to Hypertex: Vannevar Bush and the Mind's
Machine, Academic Press, 1991.
42. Albert Borgmann, Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life, A Philosophical Inquiry,
University of Chicago Press, 1984.
43. Samuel C. Florman, The Education of an Engineer, The American Scholar, winter, 1985/86, pages
97-107.
44. David F. Noble, America by Design: Science, Technology and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism, Oxford
University Press, 1979.
45. R. Hamming, The Unreasonable Eectiveness of Mathematics, The American Mathematical Monthly,
vol. 87, Feb. 1980.
46. Thomas P. Hughes, The American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm
1870-1970, Viking Press, 1989.
47. Carl W. Hall, The Age of Synthesis, The Bent of Tau Beta Pi, Summer 1997, pp. 17-19. Also,
The Age of Synthesis: A Treatise and Sourcebook (Worcester Polytechnic Institute Studies in Science,
Technology and Culture, Vol. 16), Peter Lang Publishing, 1995.
48. Derek J. de Solla Price, Little Science, Big Science ... and Beyond, The use of science to study the
doing of science, Columbia University Press, 1963, 1986.
49. C. P. Snow, The Two Cultures and a Second Look, Cambridge Press, 1959, 1993.
50. Dian Olson Belanger, Enabling American Innovation, Engineering and the NSF, Purdue University
Press, 1998.
51. Hazeltine, Appropriate Technology: Tools, Choices, and Implications, Academic Press, 1998.
52. National Academy of Engineering, Frontiers of Engineering: Reports on Leading Edge Engineering
from the 1998 NAE Symposium on Frontiers of Engineering, National Academy Press, Washington,
1999.
53. Albert H. Teich, Technology and the Future, Seventh Edition, AAAS, St. Martin's Press, 1997.
54. Peter J. Denning, editor, The Invisible Future: The Seamless Integration of Technology into Everyday
Life, McGraw-Hill, 2001. A collection of essays from the ACM conference, Beyond Cyberspace, A
Journey of Many Directions.
55. David Brown, Inventing Modern America: From the Microwave to the Mouse, MIT Press,2002
56. Clayton M. Christensen, The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to
Fail, Harvard Business School, 1997.
57. David P. Billington, The Innovators: The Engineering Pioneers Who Made America Modern, Wiley,
1996.
58. Greg Pearson and A. Thomas Young, editors, Technically Speaking: Why all Americans Need to Know
More About Technology, National Academy Press, 2002.6 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION TO ENGINEERING
59. Alan Lightman, Daniel Sarewitz, and Christina Desser, editors, Living with the Genie: Essays on
Technology and the Quest for Human Mastery, Island Press, 2003.
60. Steven Brint, editor, The Future of the City of Intellect: The Changing American University, Stanford
University Press, 2002.
61. Billy Vaughn Koen, Discussion of THE Method, Conducting the Engineering Approach to Problem
Solving, Oxford Press, 2003.
62. Charles M. Vest, Pursuing the Endless Frontier, Essays on MIT and the Role of the Research Univer-
sities, MIT Press, 2005.
63. Arun Kumar Tripathi, Technologically Mediated Lifeworld, Ubiquity, vol. 5, Issue 41, Dec. 2005. An
ACM Web Publication.
64. Harold Evans, They Made America, From the Steam Engine to the Search Engine: Two Centuries of
Innovators; Little, Brown, and Company, 2004.
65. John Steele Gordon, A Thread Across the Ocean, The Heroic Story of the Transatlantic Cable, Peren-
nial 2002.
66. Thomas P. Hughes, Human-Built World: How to Think about Technology and Culture, Chicago Press,
2004.INDEX 7
Index of Keywords and Terms
Keywords are listed by the section with that keyword (page numbers are in parentheses). Keywords
do not necessarily appear in the text of the page. They are merely associated with that section. Ex.
apples, 1.1 (1) Terms are referenced by the page they appear on. Ex. apples, 1
D discipline, 1.1(1) P profession, 1.1(1)
E Engineer, 1.1(1), 1.2(4) R references, 1.2(4)
Engineering, 1.1(1), 1.2(4)
T technology, 1.1(1)8 ATTRIBUTIONS Attributions Collection: Engineering A Modern Creative Discipline (incomplete) Edited by: C. Sidney Burrus URL: http://cnx.org/content/col10362/1.3/ License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ Module: "What is Engineering??" By: C. Sidney Burrus URL: http://cnx.org/content/m13680/1.2/ Pages: 1-3 Copyright: C. Sidney Burrus License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ Module: "References for Introduction" By: C. Sidney Burrus URL: http://cnx.org/content/m13681/1.1/ Pages: 4-6 Copyright: C. Sidney Burrus License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
Engineering A Modern Creative Discipline (incomplete) This book is (will be) a collection of essays on Engineering and Engineers. It describes a variety of views of and approaches to Engineering with the goal of providing a modern picture of this exciting area and its contributions to society. About Connexions Since 1999, Connexions has been pioneering a global system where anyone can create course materials and make them fully accessible and easily reusable free of charge. We are a Web-based authoring, teaching and learning environment open to anyone interested in education, including students, teachers, professors and lifelong learners. We connect ideas and facilitate educational communities. Connexions's modular, interactive courses are in use worldwide by universities, community colleges, K-12 schools, distance learners, and lifelong learners. Connexions materials are in many languages, including English, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Vietnamese, French, Portuguese, and Thai. Connexions is part of an exciting new information distribution system that allows for Print on Demand Books. Connexions has partnered with innovative on-demand publisher QOOP to accelerate the delivery of printed course materials and textbooks into classrooms worldwide at lower prices than traditional academic publishers.
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